Funny the things upon which a football match can turn.
This 2-1 Europa League victory at Viktoria Plzen was for a long time a game going familiarly askew for this early and incoherent iteration of Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United. They are still visibly a team, squad and manager learning as they go, adapting to each other and making plenty of mistakes as they do so.
One of those mistakes had given Viktoria Plzen a lead early in the second half after what was largely a non-event of a first half in which United’s brand of stale and sterile domination brought back unpleasant memories of the Louis van Gaal years.
Onana tried to play a pass to Matthijs de Ligt who was in no position to receive it allowing the home side in and giving Matej ‘Wait, That Matej Vydra?’ Vydra to score.
Shortly after that, a frustrated and frustrating Marcus Rashford – already on a booking – leapt inexplicably into a wild challenge in which he was lucky to make contact with his trailing rather than leading leg. Second yellow thus dodged, he was swiftly hooked by Amorim to save him from himself.
It’s one of the most basic plays in the managerial armoury, but it worked. Rasmus Hojlund replaced Rashford and was excellent as United took charge of the final half-hour of the game to such an extent that the winner when it came in the closing minutes was entirely deserved.
Fellow substitute Mason Mount created the equaliser for Hojlund, but it was the winner that really caught the eye. The swiftness of thought and precision of execution from Bruno Fernandes’ pass was matched by Hojlund’s touch and finish to complete a turnaround of greater significance than might be immediately apparent.
For one thing, any win is particularly welcome for United at the moment. We all know it’s going to take time and at least a couple of transfer windows for Amorim to achieve his full vision. Anything that helps keep the mood up on the road to that potential future is crucial.
And more prosaically, this is a win that massively boosts United’s chances of a top-eight finish and avoiding the play-off round unpleasantness. Amorim has happily stated the obvious that he would rather have more time with his players on the training ground than worry about jamming a two-legged tie into an already packed schedule, and United now have that in their hands.
These three points lift them to fifth ahead of the late games with winnable games to come in the new year.
The concerns that remain after this ultimately invigorating win remain familiar, though. The defence remains a confused mess. Onana doesn’t appear to be relishing the task and Amorim is yet to really hit upon the ideal formula for his wing-backs, with neither the full-back-pushed-forward or winger-pushed-back approaches quite working out just yet.
United are also still finding it hard to create chances and then too often butchering the ones they do create. In a frantic closing period here they had frequent overloaded counter-attacks from which they never ever really looked like profiting.
We are starting to get an idea of which players might be able to adapt and profit in this brave new world. The slight worry is that it’s the same few players each time. Hojlund is very obviously one, Amad Diallo very obviously another.
Bruno doesn’t appear to have an obvious spot to which he’s ideally suited in this system, but possesses both the necessary technical quality and footballing intelligence to adapt and find a way to make an impression.
Rashford had, until tonight, been another player who had started well under Amorim. Inadvertently and fortuitously, he still made a big difference to United’s fortunes tonight.
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